saudade
by hiyoris-scarf
Summary: 'the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love— which is lost.'


_**saudade:**_

 _'the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love—_

 _which is lost.'_

/

"You'll be okay, right?"

Yato nods.

"Just another day of smashing ayakashi for me! Nothing for you to worry about, Hiyori."

He smiles goofily—blindingly—and sets one foot outside her window into the empty air. Before she can clarify that that's not _really_ what she meant, the air twists—she sees a slice of silver light—and he is gone.

Walking over to the window, Hiyori catches a hint of his scent, left behind after his disappearance.

She smiles. He will be okay. He always is.

/

"You're doing all right—aren't you, Yato?"

"Yeah, I am."

He pauses as they walk side-by-side on the narrow overpass sidewalk.

"Why do you keep asking me that, Hiyori?" His voice is clouded with suspicion.

She stops too.

She doesn't tell him how she's noticed his near-24-hour lurking outside her house and school—he even follows her to the places she goes after studying with Ami and Yama. He may as well be stalking her—but she knows better than to openly accuse him of it.

"I'm going to remember you said that," she says, teasingly, and walks over to him. She pokes his warm shoulder, grinning widely.

"That'll teach me to worry about you again."

/

"What, no interrogation today?" he asks, sounding faintly annoyed.

There's a blunt hint of betrayal there, too. Hiyori looks up at him in bemusement.

"…What?"

"You're always asking me if I'm 'okay'—if I'm doing fine—or whatever. But you haven't bugged me about it even once today."

That's right. She has tried to make a point of asking him that, these days.

"I haven't?" she asks, confusedly. "I'm—I'm sorry."

Her thoughts tumble in momentary panic. She had been _so_ determined—

"I guess you must have been acting so normal that I just assumed," she says, casually.

As he looks down at her, Yato's face seems to freeze. Then, he smiles—but it stops just short of his eyes.

"Then…I guess I'll try to keep it up," he says, matching her easy tone.

/

He bursts into her room: unannounced, as usual.

"Hiyori!"

"Aah!" she shrieks, throwing herself back in her chair and nearly toppling to the floor. As quick as a cat, he catches her under her arms, righting her in her seat. She bolts from him—out of the chair and to the other end of the room.

"Wh—who are—get _out!"_

Every nerve in her body thrums with panic, and when her eyes land on the intruder, they don't widen in recognition.

Then, she sees his horror-stricken expression. His face whitens by a few shades. And she realizes—and her stomach plunges—

"Oh…Yato…"

Quickly, he fixes his expression into a semblance of amusement and laughs weakly.

"I guess I must have really scared you that time."

/

After that, it goes unspoken between them that he'll never leave her alone again.

But there are still intervals of loss—when his presence grows fainter and fainter in her memory, even though he's sitting right next to her. These become longer, and more difficult for her to cope with.

One time, she wakes up in the earliest hours of morning. Her whole body stiffens in terror at the strange, tall shape sharing half her bed.

Her semi-audible whimper catches his attention, and he turns the light on.

"It's me," he whispers, waiting for her recognition to click.

It takes too long. His face keeps hiding from her memory, like water on white paper. It won't stop vanishing, no matter how many times she tries to repaint it.

"It's just me," he promises, reaching for her across the short distance.

"Remember?" he asks, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. His smell is still familiar, at least. Slowly, slowly, she relaxes.

When she tries to speak, her voice feels like it's choking her:

"I'm trying."

/

He never leaves her alone, but it's still confusing and disorienting to constantly adjust her mind to his existence. It begins to take a toll on her: both mentally and physically.

"I'm not sure what to tell you," the small group of experts remarks dispiritedly to the Ikis. Her parents' concern and fright is so strong she can nearly feel it in the air.

But Hiyori—after she catches a glimpse of blue, and a black tracksuit right outside of the office window—doesn't really need to be told.

/

"Hiyori…?"

His voice is small. Scared. He's never quite sure now if she'll recognize him or not.

She closes the door and turns toward him, arranging her face into an expression of reassurance. This is one of those rare moments when she knows him with such intensity that it _hurts_ her.

"Yato."

He stands in the middle of her dimly lit room, obviously waiting for her to come back. He's a mess. The deep, moon-gray crescents under his eyes make him look skeletal. The jersey of his tracksuit hangs off his shoulders, limp and unwashed. He hasn't left her side in weeks.

"How are you doing?" she asks, gently.

The innocent question drags an awful, gutted sound from him. Then, before she can move, he bears down on her, hugging her—with what feels like every ounce of his considerable strength.

She can feel the quiver of his breath, close and warm on her cheek. Her eyes sting with a sudden, violent ache, and a single drop slides down the right side of her nose.

"Will you be okay?" she persists.

"I'll always be okay," he says, shuddering a little as he keeps holding her. He coughs out a pathetic, false laugh. "Don't worry about me."

Hiyori's hands climb up—one fists in the fabric at his chest, and the other reaches around his shoulders to cling to the back of his neck. She grips until her fingers ache from it.

It's only when something warm splashes onto her hand does she realize that he's crying too—that the tremors she feels at the top of his spine are from the deep, gasping breaths he's been trying to hold in.

"Yato—" she begins, when he interrupts her.

"Please," he whimpers. " _Please_ —stop forgetting me. I'll do better—"

The heartbroken sound of him begging hits her like a punch to the gut, and she clutches him tighter—trying to force her unwilling memory to accommodate him.

"Listen to me," she whispers. She presses her forehead to his and tries to keep him from shaking so much. It doesn't work. "Yato,"—carefully pronouncing his name, so he knows that now—right _now_ —she's still with him.

"You've done everything that you can."

Aiming for comfort, her words seem to have the opposite effect. His head droops all the way down onto her shoulder, and he gathers her so close to him that she can hardly breathe. But he still smells good—so _very_ good—that her head becomes light from it.

His soft, hiccuping breaths stir the short, fine hairs behind her ear.

"I…don't think I'm gonna be okay…Hiyori."

"That's not what I want to hear," she murmurs. "I want to hear you say that it's just another day—that everything is normal."

Gradually, the shaking of his shoulders quiets to spasmodic shivers. She feels that his breath is still ragged.

"Everything is just going as usual, Yato," she says quietly, into his ear. "I'll go to sleep tonight—and I'll wake up tomorrow, still remembering you."

She goes silent, gulping down a tremble in her voice. Yato doesn't respond.

"…Okay?" she finally whispers.

For a few more seconds, he doesn't even breathe. Then, he lets all his air out in a low _whoosh_.

"Yeah," he says. He squeezes her—just a little bit tighter—before letting go.

"Okay."

/

She wakes up suddenly, for some reason expecting to find someone else in her room. Instead, she is met only with a mixture of surprise and disappointment on finding herself alone.

Hiyori tugs the covers up tightly around her neck, instinctually turning her head toward the empty half of the bed. Her throat hurts. Her eyes hurt.

Reaching out, her fingers brush the pillow there. The dip where someone else's back might have rested. The warmth that might have been their body heat.

She can never remember feeling so fiercely lonely. And lonelier still, because she can't remember _why_ —

 _I hope you're okay._

Her throat catches on a soft, sorrowful hiccup, and her eyes squeeze shut.

Whoever it is that she's missing, she hopes, at least…he doesn't feel like this.


End file.
